About

Strangers Within (Indie Horror Feature Film)

£4,062

pledged of £1,000 goal

83

backers

PROJECT UPDATE

A huge thank you to everyone who has contributed to our project. We have reached our target of £3000! Any money we raise on top of this will allow us to be able to deliver Strangers Within to it's full potential. Scroll down to the budget section and discover how this will be allocated.

Keep telling your friends about the project, follow us on Facebook and Twitter for updates throughout production! We're also listed on IMDb if you want to find out more about the cast there.

Sam and her friends are terrorised during a gathering at her isolated house by three young men after something more than the girls.

Sam, the daughter of world-renowned artist Martha Templeton, invites three friends to join her for the night when she is left home alone. One of the girls brings her boyfriend and his two close friends with it quickly becoming apparent that a much more sinister plan is being hatched. What starts off as a mysterious teen horror, quickly mutates into a tension filled thriller heist with unpredictable twists around every corner and climaxes with one message; what goes around comes around.

After watching and being disappointed with multiple home invasion horror films, we decided to create one ourselves. With a meaty plot and characters that we can actually connect with, while still delivering numerous scares, both sudden and slow burning.

We would like to make a film that can be on the same iconic level as The Last House On The Left, with tensions flying from side to side and constantly guessing what happens next. Whilst delivering as much of a terrifying impact as films like Strangers and Kidnapped, with the cultural longevity of Scream.

We will begin principle photography late August and plan to have the film completed by December. We will then be taking it on a tour of the major independent film festivals in an attempt to find distribution for a small cinematic release, followed by a VOD release.

Strangers Within marks writer/director Liam Hooper's second feature film, following in the footsteps of his 2011 Comedy/Horror Darkwood Manor which he created aged 17 and went on to pick up an award at the British Horror Film Festival in Leicester square.

This time round Hooper has teamed up with a couple of his former BRIT School peers, Mark Stewart and Mikey Fendick, to create a professional feature film on a budget with each team member focusing on their own specific area. Collectively we are known as 2050 Films.

Soundtrack

The Strangers Within original soundtrack will be written and composed by Iain Mahanty, known for his work with alternative rockers Kids In Glass Houses. He will be creating a sound so atmospheric and unnerving that it can standalone as a frightening piece of music even without the film to accompany it. Here's a snippet of a track Iain has created called Lost Signals.

Due to the majority of the film taking place in one, private location that we have already acquired, there are some things other than locations, we need a budget for.

The Fire Scene

Sam trapped in the burning garage

There is an hugely ambitious sequence towards the end of the film which, while not impossible, is going to be difficult to shoot. One thing leads to another and the house is set alight, resulting in a towering inferno with one character trapped inside.

To pull this off we are going to use a combination of practical fire elements, digital VFX and stunning 3D bespoke fire effects created by Josh O'Learyand Craig Healy.

Production Design

How we plan to dress the Art Studio

We have also allocated a large amount of our budget towards the set design of the film. We have two brilliant production designers Jonathan Salariya and Harry Marshall who have been working day and night to transform the pleasant family home we are shooting at into a cold, unloving household.

Food and Transport

In addition to this we also need to set aside a portion of our budget to feed our cast and crew and cover basic expenses that will add up over the duration of the shoot.

Breakdown

We aim to raise £3000 in order to deliver Strangers Within to it's full potential. This is how we are budgeting the production:

£1500 - Fire special effects - We will be creating practical fire and employing specialist VFX artists to help deliver deliver one of the most crucial moments of the film.

£500 - Production design - This ranges from key pieces like the mum's painting Guilt, to smaller details like the Templeton's mailbox, glass shards and fake blood.

£500 - Catering for cast and crew - This is to feed 20 members of the cast and crew daily, in addition to 50 extras on one of the days. We will be using donated food from local Brighton restaurants to supplement this cost.

£200 - Costumes - We will need a small budget for costume to help dress some of the edgier characters in our story. This will contribute towards the casts believability and appropriately dress them for the situations they're in. We worked closely with costume designer Emily Rastas to show off the characters traits before they've even said a word.

£200 - Lighting - Though many of the crew will be supplying their own equipment we will need to create custom lighting kits, including china balls and led kits. This will help deliver the atmospheric lighting that will set the tone for the film.

£100 - Location hire - We will be hiring two locations including St. Andrews Church, Brighton and Jack's apartment for the opening scene. Additionally we will be hiring a local bus - The Big Lemon, which will appear in the opening scenes.

Risks and challenges

Our biggest challenge is going to be the fire sequence at the climax of the film. If we do not raise enough budget needed to, realistically, pull it off we will still shoot the rest of the film and source additional completion funding for that scene.